MySQL Error: : 'Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost'

Consider:

./mysqladmin -u root -p** '_redacted_'  

Output (including typing the password):

Enter password:

mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed error:
'Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES)'

How can I fix this?

All solutions I found were much more complex than necessary and none worked for me. Here is the solution that solved my problem. There isn't any need to restart mysqld or start it with special privileges.

sudo mysql

-- for MySQL
ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'root';

-- for MariaDB
ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED VIA mysql_native_password USING PASSWORD('root');

With a single query we are changing the auth_plugin to mysql_native_password and setting the root password to root (feel free to change it in the query).

Now you should be able to log in with root. More information can be found in MySQL documentation or MariaDB documentation.

(Exit the MySQL console with Ctrl + D or by typing exit.)

1. Open and edit /etc/my.cnf or /etc/mysql/my.cnf, depending on your distribution.
2. Add skip-grant-tables under [mysqld]
3. Restart MySQL
4. You should be able to log in to MySQL now using the below command mysql -u root -p
5. Run mysql> flush privileges;
6. Set new password by ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'NewPassword';
7. Go back to /etc/my.cnf and remove/comment skip-grant-tables
8. Restart MySQL
9. Now you will be able to login with the new password mysql -u root -p

None of the previous answers helped me with this problem, so here's the solution I found.

The relevant part:

In Ubuntu systems running MySQL 5.7 (and later versions), the root MySQL user is set to authenticate using the auth_socket plugin by default rather than with a password. This allows for some greater security and usability in many cases, but it can also complicate things when you need to allow an external program (e.g., phpMyAdmin) to access the user.

In order to use a password to connect to MySQL as root, you will need to switch its authentication method from auth_socket to mysql_native_password. To do this, open up the MySQL prompt from your terminal:

sudo mysql

Next, check which authentication method each of your MySQL user accounts use with the following command:

SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;

Output

+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| user             | authentication_string                     | plugin                | host      |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| root             |                                           | auth_socket           | localhost |
| mysql.session    | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.sys        | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| debian-sys-maint | *CC744277A401A7D25BE1CA89AFF17BF607F876FF | mysql_native_password | localhost |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

In this example, you can see that the root user does in fact authenticate using the auth_socket plugin. To configure the root account to authenticate with a password, run the following ALTER USER command. Be sure to change password to a strong password of your choosing, and note that this command will change the root password you set in Step 2:

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'password';

Then, run FLUSH PRIVILEGES which tells the server to reload the grant tables and put your new changes into effect:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Check the authentication methods employed by each of your users again to confirm that root no longer authenticates using the auth_socket plugin:

SELECT user,authentication_string,plugin,host FROM mysql.user;

Output

+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| user             | authentication_string                     | plugin                | host      |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
| root             | *3636DACC8616D997782ADD0839F92C1571D6D78F | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.session    | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| mysql.sys        | *THISISNOTAVALIDPASSWORDTHATCANBEUSEDHERE | mysql_native_password | localhost |
| debian-sys-maint | *CC744277A401A7D25BE1CA89AFF17BF607F876FF | mysql_native_password | localhost |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

You can see in this example output that the root MySQL user now authenticates using a password. Once you confirm this on your own server, you can exit the MySQL shell:

exit